That did it. Sal clamped a big hand on Hewston’s shoulder and squeezed. Hard. When a waiter started to intervene, Sal sent him a back-off look that had the man scurrying in the opposite direction.
Sal stood and, with his hand still wrapped around the Egyptian cotton of the man’s shirt, propelled him out of the bar. “We’ve got a date with the Savannah PD. Hope you packed your toothbrush because you won’t be going home anytime soon.”
* * *
Olivia knew Sal was investigating the people in her office. She told herself she was prepared for whatever he discovered.
She was wrong.
“You found something?” she asked when he showed up at the office at the close of the work day. She got to her feet, bracing her hands on the edge of her desk.
His nod held no triumph. “Yeah. Shelley put on her computer hat and dug into Hewston’s background.”
Olivia held her breath. “What did she find? Is he behind the kidnapping?”
“No evidence of that yet. But the man is up to his eyeballs in debt. Fancy cars. Fancy trips. Seems his wife has an eye for the finer things in life. He probably could have kept things afloat, but he tried to make money the easy way by playing online gaming. When he got in over his head, he started skimming. He’s been stealing from the firm and its clients for over three years.”
Even though Olivia had never particularly cared for Bryan, she’d never thought he was a thief. “Calvin would have loaned him the money if he’d known.”
“This is more than just getting through to the next paycheck.”
“How much?” she whispered.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And that’s just what we’ve uncovered so far. There’s probably more. When someone’s in that deep, he just keeps digging himself in deeper.”
Olivia sank in the seat. “I never expected that.”
“Hewston’s gotten pretty good at covering his tracks. He moves the money around. It’s like playing musical chairs. When someone looks into an account, he moves money there. Then he moves it back. He keeps shuffling it around so that it looks like all the money’s accounted for.”
“Always one step ahead.”
“You got it. He had to know things were going to catch up to him pretty soon, though.” Sal paused. “There’s more.”
“What?” Her voice was a thread of sound.
“The two men we tangled with last night?” At her nod, he continued, “Turns out Hewston represented one of them on a DUI beef. Got him off on probation. Seems the two of them have kept in touch. Hewston sent those goons after us. He thought we were onto his embezzlement. I’m sorry. I know you didn’t want that.”
“No. I didn’t.” She let it sink in. “What’s going to happen to him?”
Sal shrugged. “He’ll do time. In fact, I’d say it was a given.”
She knew how the legal system worked. Hearing it applied to a man she’d thought of as a colleague, if not a friend, was somehow different. Bryan had sent those thugs to scare her and Sal off, maybe worse. The words worked their way through her mind. They refused to register.
“We have to question Bryan, get him to tell us what he knows,” she said at last.
“If he’s smart, he’ll clam up and hire a slick lawyer.”
“I can talk with him, convince him to tell us what he knows about Calvin.” She paused. “If he’s involved.”
“You don’t think he is?”
“I don’t know.”
Sal framed her face with his big hands. From his expression, she knew she wasn’t going to like what he had to say. “Why don’t you go visit Shelley? She’s pregnant, big as a house, and could use the company.”
She wasn’t fooled. “You want me out of the way, right?”
His nod was rueful. “The most important thing I can do right now is find out who’s behind this. That’s the best way to keep you alive. Until I can do that, I have to stash you some place safe.”
“I can’t go into hiding. In case you’ve forgotten, I have a case to try.”
“Get a postponement.”
She shook away his hands. “I can take care of myself.”
“Really? So why’d you call me in the first place?”
“That’s not fair.”
He shook his head. “You’re right. It’s not fair. I don’t play fair when I’m scared.”
“You’re scared?” She didn’t believe it. Salvatore Santonni was the bravest man she knew.
“What do you think? Someone wants you out of the way. Do you think anything else matters?” He took a long breath. “When I saw that man put his hands on you last night, I nearly went ballistic.”
Sal was right. Her exhilaration of last night had faded, and in its place was the stark reality that someone wanted to hurt her. Or worse.
She and Sal were no closer to finding out who had kidnapped Calvin than they had been a day ago. Just as unsettling, the more she was with Sal, the more she remembered how much she enjoyed his company. Even with bad guys following them and not knowing if Calvin was alive, she liked being with him.
With an impatient shake of her head, she reminded herself that she had work. Now wasn’t the time to dwell upon how much she was beginning to care about him. Again.
The part of her that yearned warred against the part that needed to protect herself from being hurt. She had given her heart to Sal two years ago and it had ended in disaster. She didn’t know if she had the courage to risk it again.
What she needed was a distraction, something to take her mind off Sal. Work would do that. The case was ongoing and didn’t stop just because someone had abducted Calvin and was trying to kill her. She doubted the judge would grant a continuance even if Olivia asked for one. Which she wouldn’t. The parents deserved justice now.
TEN
For the first time since he’d returned stateside, Sal wasn’t certain of his next move. If it had been any other op, he’d have a dozen scenarios lined up. As it was, he couldn’t keep his mind off Olivia.
Denying that he cared for her didn’t wash. From the time he’d laid eyes on her again, he knew what they’d shared hadn’t died. If anything, his feelings were stronger than ever.
Despite her work as an attorney, Olivia remained largely untouched by the seamier side of life. She wanted to believe that people kept their word, that they’d play by the rules simply because that was how she lived her life.
With several tours of duty in the Middle East behind him, Sal knew that life was seldom fair and that people lied whenever it suited their needs.
He’d enlisted with a wide-eyed patriotism and a determination to serve his country to the best of his ability. He hadn’t been afraid of dying. No, his greatest fear was that of failing. Failing his unit. Failing his country. Failing himself.
He’d never lost his resolve to serve his country, but the innocence of that young boy he’d been was tarnished forever. Whatever naiveté he’d once possessed had been stripped away after witnessing the cruelties that people committed against others without hesitation.
Sal had never tolerated those who preyed upon those weaker than themselves. It wasn’t in his makeup to do so. From the time he’d been a boy, he’d tried to defend those who needed protection from the bullies of the world.
Now Olivia needed him, and once again, he was afraid of failing. Because if he did, it could cost her her life.
Olivia had insisted on returning to the office to get some work done. Sal knew she needed to rest, but he went along with it. While she went through a stack of papers, he contented himself by watching her.
The lamp on her desk cast her in soft light. He took in the line of her cheek, the stubborn set of her jaw. She had a way of biting her lower lip when she was concentrating that made him want to smile.
Olivia was holding on by a thread. Sal knew it, saw it in the trembling of her hands when she picked up a glass of water, heard it in her voice when she occasionally talked to herself about what she was doing.
She had been threatened with a knife, her boss had been kidnapped, she herself had almost been abducted, and then there was last night’s attack. The fact that she was still standing said volumes about her strength and faith. When she leaned back in her chair to stretch, Sal came to stand behind her and rub her neck.
“Thanks.”
The shrilling of the phone caused him to drop his hands. She put the phone on speaker, allowing him to listen to the caller’s part of the conversation.
“It’s time, Olivia.” The voice was maddeningly calm. “Are you ready to do your part?”
“Yes.”
“Then listen carefully.” The voice was irritatingly patient, as though the caller was speaking to a slow-witted child. “Your boss’s life depends upon you following instructions to the letter. You can do that, can’t you? Follow instructions?”
“Of course I can.” The snap in her voice had the person at the other end of the line laughing softly.
“Temper, temper. Be careful. You don’t want to make me angry. Chantry’s desk has a concealed drawer. Inside is a thumb drive. We want it. Bring it to us and we’ll turn him loose.” The voice gave instructions to meet at a boat slip at the docks. “Leave the drive in a brown paper bag in the blue trash can. It’s almost over. Do as you’ve been told and your boss will be released.”
The call ended as abruptly as it had started.
“You know about the drawer?” Sal asked. “How to open it?”
She nodded. “Calvin bought the desk from an antiques dealer who pointed it out. When the desk was delivered, he showed the drawer to me.” A faint smile touched her lips. “He was so excited about it, like a little kid with his first bike.”
“Let’s go get it.” They headed to Chantry’s office.
In the opulently appointed office, Olivia walked to the desk and kneeled in front of it. She reached beneath and pressed a button. A small drawer, cleverly concealed by intricate carvings, slid open noiselessly. Inside, as the kidnapper had said, was a thumb drive.
“We need to see what’s on that.”
Back in Olivia’s office, Sal inserted the drive in the computer. The documents on the drive revealed that Hewston had been selling information concerning Olivia’s plan of attack in the court case to the pharmaceutical company. If he knew that Chantry possessed such proof, no wonder he’d kidnapped the man in an effort to get his hands on the file. He must have been desperate. Sal realized something else as well. That made someone in the company Olivia was fighting as dirty as Hewston.
“Why are they still going through with this?” Olivia wondered aloud. “Why not release Calvin? Bryan’s already in jail.”
“He’s in jail for embezzling and assault. If this gets out, it will send him to prison for a lot longer.” Sal hesitated. “This implicates the drug company as well.”
“I thought I knew him. It turns out I didn’t know him at all.”
* * *
Olivia tucked the USB drive inside her briefcase. She saw a similar-looking drive there and remembered she still had the “leaf-peeper” pictures she’d taken last fall during a trip to Connecticut. Her goal had been to print the pictures and scrapbook them. Of course, she’d never gotten around to it.
Work had a way of interfering with the rest of life. Once Calvin was safely home and the case against the pharmaceutical company was over, she intended on changing that. Though she loved her job, she wanted a life outside of it.
One that included Sal? She pushed that thought away and concentrated on the present.
“We need to be ready for the exchange.” She’d gone over the kidnapper’s instructions. She had to carry them out exactly. That was Calvin’s best chance. His only chance.
“You really think they’re going to hand over your boss just like that?”
Doubts, which she’d deliberately ignored, now assailed her. “That was the agreement.”
“You can’t be that naïve. Hewston has every reason to make sure Chantry doesn’t survive. He may beat the embezzling rap, even his part in the mugging if he has a good enough lawyer. But he won’t be able to talk himself out of what your boss knows if he’s alive to testify.”
Bryan’s part in the kidnapping still baffled her. She found herself voicing her doubts aloud. “Bryan’s weak. He doesn’t like to get his hands dirty. Everything about the kidnapping is ugly. That’s not his style.”
“That’s why he hired thugs to do the dirty work.” Sal’s gaze bored into hers. “I’m hoping everything goes according to plan, but they won’t have any reason to release your boss once they have the drive.”
“Everything will be fine. We just have to do what the kidnappers say.” Even as she said the words, she heard the foolish hope behind them. She refused to take them back. She needed that hope, held on to it as she would a lifeline. It was all she had.
“Something’s off about this whole exchange. Think about it. Why ask for a drive with the files when they had to figure you’d copy it?”
She’d asked herself the same question and hadn’t been able to come up with an answer. Then or now. The kidnappers had to know that files could be copied with a press of a computer key. In fact, she and Sal had done that last night after looking at what the drive contained.
Nothing added up, including Bryan’s part in the plot. “What about the men who attacked me in the office and then tried to kidnap me? How do they fit in?”
“At a guess, more of Hewston’s hired muscle.” The hard glitter in Sal’s eyes warned her that she wasn’t going to like what he’d say next. “I know Chantry has been more friend than boss—”
“He’s family.”
Sal continued as if she hadn’t interrupted. “But you need to be prepared that this isn’t going to go down the way you want.”
“Why do you keep doing that?” Anger spilled over and out.
“Doing what?”
“Making me fear the worst.” Didn’t he know how much she needed to hope, to believe that everything would be all right?
“Because I’m trying to keep you alive.”
ELEVEN
They didn’t speak on the way to the docks. Olivia sat in tight-lipped silence, hands clenched in her lap, refusing to look at him. Sal understood her anger. He’d taken away her hope, her belief that they would get Chantry back safely.
Though Sal regretted hurting her that way, she needed to prepare for the worst. Once abductors had what they wanted, they most often got rid of the hostages. That was the only ending that made sense to them.
At the dock, he parked the truck and rounded it to help Olivia out. She wrinkled her nose. He didn’t blame her. Brine and diesel oil brewed together in an unpleasant mix. Longshoremen worked at unloading freighters. Shouts pierced the air.
She nodded her thanks but still didn’t say anything to him. Finally, she touched his arm. “I’m sorry. You were only trying to help if...if things don’t go the way we want.”
“You don’t have to do this,” he said. “I can put the drive in the trash can.”
“They told me to do it. I have to do this. For Calvin.”
Sal didn’t answer but pointed to the can the kidnappers had designated. Per instructions, Olivia set the bag containing the drive in it.
“It’s done. Calvin will show up any moment. You’ll see.”
He wished he felt as confident.
“What are they waiting for? We gave them the drive.”
Sal knew she didn’t expect an answer.
A man appeared on the bow of a boat. Judging from Olivia’s cry of joy, it was Chantry. She waved and he raised his arm in
return.
“Calvin! Calvin!” She started to rush forward, only to be stopped when Sal clamped an arm around her waist.
That suddenly, the boat was engulfed in flames. Black smoke belched from it. Murderous reds, violent oranges lit the sky. The smell hit them in the face. Bitter. Acrid. The stench reeked of destruction. And death.
Sal pushed Olivia down, fell on top of her.
The earth trembled. He curved his body over her, protecting her from the raining debris of metal and wood.
“Open your mouth!”
“What?”
“Just open it.” Keeping their mouths open would prevent their eardrums from rupturing.
“Are you okay?” he asked when the explosion had subsided.
“I th-think so. What about you?”
“Fine. Let’s get you out of here.” He stood, held out his hand to help her up. “Can you stand?”
“I have to go to Calvin. Maybe he’s hurt and needs help.”
“You can’t help him. Not now.”
“We have to do something.” She struggled against Sal’s hold on her, but she was no match for his strength.
Sal turned her around, pressed her against his chest. “You don’t need to see this.”
“Too late. I already have. I saw my friend being burned alive.”
* * *
“We need to get the USB back.”
Olivia nodded, unable to do anything more. But when Sal went for the USB, gunshots rang out.
The shots weren’t coming from the where the boat had been docked only minutes ago but from a different direction. Sal grabbed Olivia. They zigzagged across the dock and ran toward his truck.
He yanked open the door, and she climbed inside. They didn’t wait for the police to show up but sped to the police station. At the police station, they headed to Detective Nynan’s office.
Shattered Secrets Page 8